Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)
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Read between March 3 - March 7, 2025
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“There’s a reason we don’t fuck around in the Archives. That’s the beating heart of the enemy.” His gaze bores into mine. “We don’t have any friends there.” “Well, I do.”
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“I’ve done exactly what you asked. I kept everything from my friends.” I glare into the depths of his soul. “So don’t be an asshole to them.” “Exactly what I’ve asked?” He leans down, bringing his face within a breath of mine. “By keeping your research a secret?”
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“Are you really going to stand here and compare secrets with me?” “It’s not the same.” He winces. “It’s exactly the same!” I grip the strap of the bag to keep from jabbing him in the chest with my finger. How fucking dare he. “I’m researching the wards for you.” “Why do you think I’m so angry?” The tension in his eyes, his posture, his tone equals mine. “Because you don’t like being on the other side of secrets.”
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“That has… How long have you been hiding this from me?” Xaden questions. “They’re not even…speaking,” Rhiannon mutters. “I haven’t hidden shit from you. I’ve simply told you selective truths.”
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“But I’m livid that you’ve put your life at risk for me. That’s not something I can handle.” “It’s not at risk. I can trust her.”
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“I never said you weren’t brilliant. I never even said your plan wasn’t brilliant. I said you’re putting yourself in danger and I’m just asking you to be honest with me.”
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“Varrish pushed you to near-fucking-burnout, and you didn’t tell me that, either.” His jaw works. “Or that you wielded in the middle of the courtyard after Battle Brief.”
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“Put your shields back up.” “It’s Nolon,”
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“Nolon?” My jaw drops at how much weight the mender has lost. His skin hangs as loosely as his black uniform, and his eyes are missing their usual spark when he tries to smile at me.
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“Waiting for someone.” Nolon scratches a few days’ growth of beard on his jaw. “And I suppose I could use some rest. It’s hard work, mending a soul. Been at it for months now.”
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“Not that I’m aware of. Ridoc thinks they’re using Nolon for interrogations.” My face crinkles. “But I’m not sure if he was serious or not. It’s hard to tell with Ridoc.”
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“My father loved this place. He was ecstatic when my mother was assigned here because it meant that he’d have the full resources of the Archives.” I smile at the memory. “Not that he didn’t love maintaining the records and libraries at the outposts we were stationed at, but to a scribe, this place is the pinnacle of a career. It’s their temple.”
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“There is something off about that orange,” Rhiannon notes, adjusting the strap of her flight goggles as we approach Third Wing. “You mean, like the fact that he torched Third Squad without a second thought?” Ridoc questions, buttoning his flight jacket. “And Varrish seems so…controlled.”
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“Like he knows something you don’t,” Rhi finishes, giving the Red Clubtail from First Squad a wide berth as we pass. “Is there some history with your mom, maybe? Some bad blood?”
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“But he’s obsessed with Andarna.” There, there’s some of the truth. “She all right?” Sawyer asks. “I haven’t seen her in a while.” “She’s been resting a lot.”
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“But you will be. Warnings have apparently not worked, and I am hereby charging you with dereliction of duty for your dragon’s refusal to appear for maneuvers. You will mount and fly to your training location with Professor Carr to receive your punishment.” “That will not be happening.”
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“Obviously, her first punishment wasn’t enough to teach your subordinate, Squad Leader Matthias, so she requires another.”
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“There will be no punishment!” Tairn roars, and from the abrupt head jerks of the dragons on the field, including Solas, everyone heard him. “It is not within your power to summon a dragon.”
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“Your dragon may not fall under my command, Sorrengail, but you do. So unless you’d like to further explore that delicate space between burnout and death, you will mount and present yourself—” “Even the smallest dragon does not answer to the most powerful of humans, which you are not.”
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“Andarna does not answer to you.” Tairn stalks forward, his head and chest so low to the ground that he nearly touches my hair, and Varrish retreats. “I do not answer to you.”
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“Does she?” Tairn lunges forward, bypassing Varrish entirely and surging toward Solas with an ear-shattering roar, his morningstar tail lashing the air above me. Solas whips his head toward the ground to guard his most vulnerable area—his neck—but Tairn is faster, bigger, and far stronger. He’s already there, his enormous jaw locked around Solas’s throat.
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Varrish turns and stiffens as crimson rivulets run over Solas’s orange neck scales, dripping off several of the ridges. “Tairn…” What will the Empyrean do to him if he kills Solas? “Only a rider can be the vice commandant of Basgiath,”
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“Not good enough.” Tairn’s teeth reach the edges of Solas’s scales as I watch in slack-jawed horror. “This is about you.”
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“Apologize,” Tairn demands, his voice low and sharp. “I’m sorry!” Varrish’s voice breaks. “Apologize to the one Andarna deemed worthy of her bond.”
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“I think so.” I nod. “His apology isn’t necessary to me, Tairn. Really. I’m happy to just not die today.” “It is necessary to me, Silver One.” His voice rumbles in my head. “I speak for Andarna while she is in the Dreamless Sleep.”
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Varrish pivots toward me, hatred and terror filling his gaze. “I am…sorry. It is not in my authority to summon any dragon.” “On your knees.”
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“You have my most sincere apology—you and your dragon. Both of your dragons.”
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And Varrish stares at me with a hatred so bitter I can taste it on the back of my tongue as Solas launches behind him with a roar aimed in my direction—or Tairn’s—leaving behind pools of blood on the grass below. Only once Solas is clear of the flight field does Varrish rise to his feet, and I don’t need words to hear him loud and clear as he sends one last, lethal look my way and then strides for the end of the field and the Gauntlet steps.
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But my heartbeat doesn’t calm or even slow at the dread that curdles in my stomach. Varrish may have been my enemy before, but I have a feeling this just made Solas my nemesis.
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“That stupid fucking Gauntlet isn’t just about physically climbing it. It’s about overcoming the fear that we can’t. It’s about climbing after we see it kill our friends. Parapet, Gauntlet, Presentation—they seem excessive when we’re here, but they prepare us for something way worse when we leave. And until you…” I shake my head. “You don’t know what it’s like out there, Rhi. You can’t understand.”
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“You won’t talk to me! You’re running with Imogen, or locked away reading, or spending every possible Saturday with Riorson. And that’s fine, I want you to get whatever support you need, but you’re sure as hell not talking to me, so how would you expect me to know anything? Don’t forget, Liam was my friend, too!”
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“You weren’t there!” My anger slips from the box I painstakingly built for it, and power whips through me, scalding my veins.
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“I’m grateful every single day that you don’t have those memories, that you and Sawyer and Ridoc weren’t there. I wouldn’t wish that day on my worst enemy, let alone my closest friend, and even if I’m quiet lately, that’s what you still are—my closest friend.”
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“And you’re right. I should talk to you. You lost Liam, too. You have every right to know—”
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“After War Games, RSC is when the most second-years die,” she admits quietly. “And they take one or two squads at a time for exercises, so you don’t really notice the increase in the death roll, but it’s there. If you don’t break, they can accidentally torture you to death, and if you do break, they’ll kill you for it.”
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“I know that they originate from the wardstone in the Vale because of the hatching grounds located there, and that they’re boosted with a power supply along our border outposts to expand their natural distance in places and maintain a strong defense.”
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“It’s the alloy stored in the outposts that tugs some of those umbrella spokes forward,”
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“You don’t.” She shakes her head. “The extensions are what we weave. It’s like continuing a tapestry that’s been stretched too far. You’re just adding threads to something that already exists, and we can’t extend the wards to Athebyne. We’ve tried. But who told you—” “Is that how your signet works?” I stop flipping. “Because you’re basically a ward, right?”
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I kind of pull the wards with me. Sometimes I can manifest on my own, but I have to be close to an outpost. Kind of like I’m just another thread. What has gotten into you?”
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“Do you know how the wardstone works?” I ask, lowering my voice to a whisper. “No.” Her eyes flare. “Keep throwing bef...
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“Right.” I force a smile and throw my next dagger with a little more strength than necessary. Time to change the subject. Maybe she knows, or maybe she doesn’t, but she’s definitely not going to tell me. “Speaking of classified, were you on any of the missions to check the Poromish cities for damage?” I put my hands up when she gawks at me. “They told us about it in Battle Brief; it’s not secret anymore.”
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“Tell me what’s going on with you. Now.” I was thrown into a battle with dark wielders, lost one of my closest friends, fought an actual venin on the back of my dragon, and then was mended by our very not-dead brother.
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“I just think it’s weird that you wouldn’t know anyone on the missions into Poromiel. You know everyone. And how do you know that what you saw was one of the riots tasked with reconnaissance?”
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“Because there were over a dozen dragons in the distance to the south, over the border. What the hell else could it have been, Violet?” She gives me a skeptical look.
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This is it. This is the opening to tell her the truth. The chance to bring her in so she fights on the right side of this conflict, so she can see our brother. Wyvern. She saw wyvern. But it’s not just my life...
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“What if they’re wyvern?” There. I said it. Kind of. She blinks and draws her head back. “Say again?” “What if you saw wyvern? What if they’re destroying Poromish cities, since we both know it isn’t dragons?”
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“You have to spend less time reading those fables, Vi. Have you been getting enough rest since the gryphon attack? Because you sound like maybe you’re not sleeping.”
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“No. He’s in the operations center, which is—” “Above my clearance. I know.”
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“They killed them,” he admits softly. “Happens all the time out here, just doesn’t get briefed at Basgiath. Lie back down.” The suggestion is gentle. “Mira’s perfectly fine.”
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“For all my anger, you’re right not to trust me, because I almost told her. I even hinted, hoping she’d catch on.” A bitter laugh slips free. “I want her to know. I want her to see Brennan. I want her to be on our side. I just…” My throat threatens to close.
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